In telecommunications, users of terminals typically subscribe to service plans that are offered by telecommunications operators, and use the services according to the services parameters set forth by the plan. The terminals may be computing devices or mobile devices, including, but not limited, to computers, smartphones, and/or tablets.
For example, if a user is under either a prepaid or post-paid data telecommunication plan that allows data transmission speed up to a predetermined amount such as 300 Kbits per second, the network speed that the terminal is allowed to attain is limited to that speed. Typically, higher quality services such as levels of faster network speed are offered at higher price plans, because a higher quality of services (QoS) would consume more resources on the network operated by the telecommunications operator. Moreover, quality of services is typically configured and enforced by telecommunication operators to protect their network resources, and throttling may be used as a means to penalize users whom the telecommunications operators have determined are abusing the network by transmitting an excessive amount of data over the network.
However, there are cases where users who are under a less expensive plan with a limited quality of service (e.g. network speed) temporarily need a better quality of service by dynamically boosting average or maximum network speed to optimally transmit data during special circumstances, even if it means the users must pay more for the temporary change of the service. In another instance, users may wish to dynamically change their designated quality of service based on how they intend to use the terminal to communicate data over the network. According to conventional implementations, users typically have to purchase a service with higher quality of service on a long-term basis and waste the additional network resources that the users would not consume.
There is a need to provide mechanisms to flexibly accommodate selections of various levels of quality of services of networks by users, and dynamically change plans in real-time or within a predetermined time period among different qualities of services configurations, while striking a balance with network resource management that network service providers are responsible for. Such a mechanism would require ways to switch billing methods as well as managing quality of services in a near-real-time basis.